Life is hard enough just taking care of our own business, but it is made infinitely more challenging when we consider the vast web of connections we have. Each of us have our own strengths, but also our own faults. Dealing with other people’s faults can be a large weight on people. I’ve been there, despite my tendency to isolate or block people out. I’d say most people have struggled with that to varying degrees, so you’re certainly not alone.

This feeling of disappointment is an alarm – not our phone on vibrate-mode. This alarm is probably at least on level 3 of 5, and we need to take care of the problem before it gets any worse. And it will… it’s like the roller coaster when it “tick, tick, ticks” up to the top of that big hill. The amount of time between a level 3 problem and a level-5 problem is exponentially shorter than between a 1 and 3 problem.

Here is the twist to responding to this alarm. The answer will not have you following the standard advice. I’ll go so far as to say the standard advice for this situation will make it even worse. It’s like throwing water on a grease fire.

The standard advice when dealing with difficult people or people that let us down/disappoint us is to realize they don’t control our lives. They have their problems to deal with and that isn’t our responsibility.

The standard advice goes awry because the root of our feelings isn’t that other people let us down. It is our own pride. If our pride is left unchecked, it barrels downhill at break-neck speeds. If it is at the point you are consciously aware of feeling either specific people or people in general usually let you down, we’re already heading downhill pretty fast. You don’t want to hit bottom on this one – trust me. Let’s see if we can turn this one around with God’s help.

Defending the concept that I am right and everyone else is wrong is an impossible reality to perpetuate so it needs help – a push in the right direction now and then to keep it going. Being in recovery groups over the years gave me insight into something I’ve certainly done at times, by seeing it play out in other people’s lives. This is yet another bonus to creating true accountability in our lives.

To effectively defend a view that people let me down, I and most likely you create situations this other person we know the other person will not respond to in the way we want. This reinforces our view that they are wrong and we are right.

Couple problems with this scenario

1. Creating this situation to test the person usually causes us pain in the process. Why would someone willingly hurt themselves to reinforce their worldview? It’s no different than an alcoholic drinking 20 beers and being sick the next 2 days.
2. There is a reason God calls us to forgive. It isn’t for our self-preservation – reducing stress or bad juju in our lives. It is because we’re not nearly as right as we think we are.
3. There is a reason God calls us to forgive. It is because we’re not nearly as right as we think we are. Yes, I meant to say that twice. When a person is struggling with blame, they need to think about this about 50 times… an hour… until the blaming stops.

Codependency is idolatry – placing other people in the position of God. The root of this though is not the people. What you typically see when a person seeks recovery from codependency without the Word of God in their lives is they’ll either inwardly or outwardly say to the other person, things like, “I’m not going to let you do ___ or ___ to me anymore.” In the case of an abusive relationship, this is a good thing – but that is a tiny, tiny minority of the situations.

The root of codependency is pride. God will not let us think we’re as awesome as we think we are. Pride separates us from God, so the codependent person feels some distance from Him. Instead of thinking the problem could be with us (because we’re prideful), we’ll think either God doesn’t care, or more likely create a different reality of God – one who loves us, but isn’t quite as personal and intimately involved in our minute-by-minute lives as the Bible makes it sound.

So the codependent person seeks this self-reinforcement somewhere else. “Who out there will make me feel valued… to think I’m as awesome as I think I am”? We’ll find people who will do this, too. People with their own set of problems who are looking for someone else to pull them out of their issues.

Of course, we’re all weak. I don’t mean this in a Christian coffee-cup verse way. I mean we’re really, really weak. The more I ponder the universe, watch things like the discovery channel, or even the local news, the more I realize we are specks of insignificance outside of God.

So why would we seek value in other people? People are broken – if we ride a bicycle to work in the morning, we don’t get to blame the bike because it’s slower than a car. More importantly, why would we seek value in ourselves and substitute shallow relationship with God in order to keep our own pride afloat?

Insanity for sure. Fortunately we are blessed to have God’s word in our lives. We’re blessed to have Christ-centered ministries like Celebrate Recovery and many others around the world which give us accountability as we pursue truth about God and let him reveal our hearts.

If you made it through this article, I give a most-sincere congratulations. A person who struggles with the sin of pride via codependency is the least responsive to notions they need to mend their ways out of any of the struggles we help with at Celebrate Recovery.

I don’t mean that in a snotty way by any means. I struggle with codependency considerably. This was less obvious when I was drugging or drinking my way through life because that helped me toward my tendency to isolate. The root is the same though. Where codependent people struggle with responsiveness to signs we need help is we condition ourselves to think people with alcohol, drug, sexual addiction, or some other morally-disapproved activity are the people who need help.

I’m lucky, because God brought me into a group for all my morally-reprehensible living and as the process worked itself out, I also became aware of my struggles with pride as it pertains to other people… my “codependency”. I am thankful God gave me insight into why I do what I do so I can get out of denial and be in a position to act on God’s word.

I hope this has been fruitful to you as well – let’s ask God to reveal our true motivations behind struggles with other people. What part are unhealthy boundaries, and what part is my pride. I can think of a situation right now I’ve got to go make right because I’ve been blaming someone else for my own deal. Be blessed -

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